By Paula White, Contra Costa County Coastal Cleanup Coordinator Before the pandemic, when we had live events on Coastal Cleanup Day, September would have been the time when site captains across the state were madly preparing for live events. This year our preparations look a little different, as we are relying on the public to self-organize and self-supply their cleanups around their neighborhoods. To help inspire you to participate in this year’s Coastal Cleanup events, I asked Contra Costa County’s site captains to talk about what motivates them to clean up year after year. John …
Ebb & Flow
The Newsletter of The Watershed Project
Plastics, Climate change, social justice, it’s all connected.
Please join us for a virtual screening of The Story of Plastic By Olivia Rose As we plunge into this fairly odd September, and welcome in Coastal Cleanup Month, I’d like to take a moment to congratulate you, dear reader, for surviving six whole months of shelter in place. You have spent over half of a year dealing with a global pandemic and all that it comes with; please as always be gentle with yourself as we learn and unlearn day by day. For myself, and I’m sure I’m not alone, quarantine has been a dichotomous time of turbulence and tranquility like never before. I can’t help but feel …
Coastal Cleanup Day in the time of COVID-19
By Paula White 2020 marks the tenth year I will be participating in Coastal Cleanup Day. In 2010, I was at Pt. Isabel in Richmond, working alongside several park rangers from the East Bay Regional Park District. My job was to explain to volunteers the purpose of collecting data on trash, aka marine debris. That, at least, hasn’t changed--I am still going to explain to volunteers why we collect data, and how important it is to our ongoing fight against plastic pollution. But other than that, Coastal Cleanup Day this year will be very different from other years. As with almost all …
A brief history of plastic
As told by a female environmentalist Olivia Rose Nearly every time I visit the grocery store, I find myself grappling with the extremely frustrating situation of trying to find items that I can afford, are convenient, and that aren’t wrapped in copious amounts of plastic. As an environmentally conscious individual living in the twenty-first century, trying to make daily decisions that benefit myself and the planet is shockingly difficult. So there I am, week after week looking at cereal, queso fresco, and even strawberries, while internally feeling conflicted and confused as to why …
Virtual back to school
By Dan Kirk Onward we go into the 2020-2021 school year, and it will be like no other year before. The Education Team, and the rest of the world knows this, so let us tell you what you don’t already know: we have designed ultra flexible educational programming for teachers and also for parents who are homeschooling this year. We take into account new health and safety regulations, but as a team we have also been undoubtedly reflective and introspective, dissecting our collective dejection and finding ways to heal ourselves and our community through meaningful place-based land stewardship …
One Bee, Two Bee, I See a Green Bee
Article By Dan Kirk While last month we focused on one type of pollinator, the butterfly, this month we will focus on the most famous pollinator of them all: the bee. Like potatoes, you may only know a few species, or at least recognize a few species. And, like potatoes, there are around 4,000 types of bee species, 1,600 of them being native to California (this is not true of potatoes). Out of those 1,600 species, there is one you may not assume is a bee, and it's name is Agapostemon texanus, or the green sweat bee. The females are bright metallic green, and you may just see one land on …
Who is Fluttering Around You?
By Dan Kirk Close your eyes and think about the last butterfly you saw; where were you? Was it sitting on a host plant? Were you sitting on a host plant? Did it hit up against your windshield as you were driving or did it flutter right past your face? When was the last time you had butterflies in your stomach? If you don’t have any memory of a recent butterfly spotting, then keep your eyes peeled. There are around 145 butterfly species in the Bay Area and many of them are out and about! Butterflies are awesome for a few reasons, firstly being that they are pollinators, helping to …
Backyard Resilience
By Kat Sawyer The Watershed Project recently taught a webinar for EBMUD on Rain Gardens and Rainwater Harvesting. One of the attendees was a Master Gardener named Joni who lives in the hills of El Cerrito. She was in the process of installing a rainwater catchment system at her home with DIG Cooperative (https://www.dig.coop/). After the installation was complete, she invited me to visit her garden. Last week I took a tour of her backyard and was charmed by its many ecological features. The story of Joni’s backyard is one of dedication and persistence that began over 20 years ago. Like …
